WZPX first signed on the air on October 11, 1996, as WJUE, carrying infomercials for most of the day as part of Paxson Communications' inTV service, along with programming from the United Paramount Network as a secondary affiliation. The station's original licensee was Horizon Broadcasting Corporation, which Paxson Communications acquired before the station's sign-on. When Paxson bought WBSX-TV in Ann Arbor, WJUE was spun off to DP Media, a sister company because of Federal Communications Commission ownership rules in effect at the time. WBSX's transmitter was located near Chelsea in northwestern Washtenaw County, which was close enough to the Ingham County line to give WBSX city-grade coverage of Lansing. Jackson, the second-largest city in the Lansing market, also got a fairly strong signal from WBSX. At the time, the FCC normally did not allow common ownership of stations with overlapping signals, and would not even consider granting a waiver for a city-grade overlap. Even though the two stations were in different markets, the FCC ruled that WJUE and WBSX were effectively a duopoly, forcing WJUE's sale. However, Paxson continued to operate the station under a local marketing agreement. Within a year, the station changed its call letters to WILV. On August 31, 1998, the station became a charter affiliate of Pax TV, and changed its call letters to the current WZPX-TV. One year later on August 31, 1999, UPN programming moved to Grand Rapids-based WXSP-CA. On October 6 of that year, WZPX became a secondary affiliate of The WB. UPN would later find an affiliate in Lansing on WHTV on October 16, 2000. During this time, the network's Detroit owned-and-operated station WKBD-TV was carried as an out-of-market signal on local cable providers. In 2000, when the FCC relaxed its ownership rules to allow ownership of stations with overlapping coverage, Paxson repurchased the station outright. As UPN, WB and Pax TV all offered prime time programming on weekdays, WZPX had scheduling conflicts during its affiliations with the former two networks. It carried the Pax programs on the same days and times as other stations, programs from UPN delayedto 11 p.m. and midnight, respectively, and programs from The WB on a one-day delay, two hours before prime time. For example, WB primetime programs that aired on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. in other markets aired on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. on WZPX; promotional spots for these programs announced their local time slots. The station carried a brief announcement when switching between programs from the differing networks. The Disney's One Too/UPN Kids blocks ran on weekday mornings, while Kids' WB ran on weekday afternoons; the Kids' WB Saturday block still aired on Saturday mornings. The Pax programming bumped from the afternoon slot simply moved earlier in the day in place of infomercials that would normally air in that slot at the time. In part, because the station had the added draw of UPN and later WB programming, WZPX was at one point one of Pax TV's highest-rated affiliates. Despite the large signal overlap between WZPX and WPXD, Lansing-area cable providers opted to carry WZPX as the Ion Television station since its signal was broadcast closer from Orangeville Township, within the Lansing television market. WPXD has since moved its transmitter to a tower in Southfield; as a result, its signal no longer covers Lansing or Jackson. Due to the closure of The WB on September 17, 2006, WZPX became solely an Ion owned-and-operated station.
